According to the legend circulating around the tribe of purple, when Brockman in November donned a plastic face guard to protect a beak broken for the fifth time, he transformed into a roundball monster.

"He played great with the mask on," Williams said. "We want to see that again."

Unfortunately, from here, the cinematic mythology breaks down. Mostly because Brockman isn't going along with it.

"No," he said, smiling, "the mask isn't coming back."

Oh, man. Talk about a spoilsport.

That just leaves his story line of the Huskies' NCAA Tournament opener here at Cox Arena on the San Diego State campus to ... well, basketball.

Specifically, whether in his first tourney game he'll be beast or least.

Brockman is the one player whose style is significantly different than anyone on the two previous UW tourney teams under coach Lorenzo Romar. In a word, ssssmackin'.

The ability to lay bone effectively upon opponents is a requirement for deep movement along the NCAA bracket. The Huskies found that out a year ago in the third round against Louisville, which negated Washington's quickness with an imposing ruthlessness in a 93-79 win that ended the Huskies' stellar 2005 season.

The 6-foot-7 Brockman, a pile of muscles and mayhem, was brought to Washington as the antidote. Inserted immediately into the starting lineup -- he had 17 points and 10 rebounds in his first game -- the masked marvel worked wonders.

For a while.

"I started off kinda hot, had a few good games," he said. "Then I dropped off, had a little slump. It was hard pulling out of that. I started thinking, 'What's happening to me? What's going on?' "

Brockman fell victim to a malady well-known among coaches who are forced to use freshmen in the starting lineup: Organ failure.

He was using his brain.

In basketball, as with many sports, the brain is to be used only in cases of emergency, such as passing a history-class test to stay eligible.

"I was thinking too much," he said, "what am I supposed to be doing, where am I supposed to be? I had to learn that if you mess up, you mess up. You can't always be in the right place at the right time. Just try to make up for your mistakes."

In conveying to Brockman the importance of leaving his brain in the classroom while deploying his instincts on the court, Romar came upon a term used by Brockman's AAU coach, Jim Marsh, to describe the nature of the Snohomish kid's play:

Maniacal.

"Coach said, 'You're a maniacal player. You gotta play as hard as you can, dive on the floor and be everywhere.' "

Romar said he reminded Brockman that controlled abandon was a major feature in the play of departed star Nate Robinson, albeit in a much stumpier package.

"Nate was a lot like that," Romar said. "He played his best when he was almost out of control. When Jon has no regard for his limbs or yours, that's when he plays his best."

It is the one thing Brockman does better than his teammates, and its rediscovery was a large part of the eight-game win streak that closed Washington's regular season. His aggression was the biggest reason Washington led the Pac-10 in rebound average (37.9) and margin (7.1), and the biggest consequence for opponents in gamboling hoopward.

A starter in all but one game, Brockman averaged only 8.9 points a game because his jump shot range is best measured in inches instead of feet. But nine points on tips, putbacks and dunks is a bonus for a team rich elsewhere in reliable shootists.

The issue tonight in avoiding upset by a 12th-seeded team loaded with older, disciplined players is whether Brockman, along with his fellow freshman, point guard Justin Dentmon, will duplicate the seasonal crescendo in the tourney crucible.

Naturally, he is sure the frosh yips are past tense.

"I look at it like I'm already a sophomore now, that my freshman season is over," he said. "I've been in a few big games. More and more I've noticed in college that it's still just a game on the court. You don't notice the fans or the TV. That helps. It's something you don't even process anymore."